Library staff wade through Fifty Shades of Grey

Monmouthshire County Council library staff will be busy for a week or so as they ascertain how many times books from the Fifty Shades of Grey series by EL James have been borrowed by Monmouthshire’s residents. This is just one example of the one thousand or so requests we receive each year as Freedom of Information (FoI) requests.

Freedom of Information (FoI) Officer, Mike Trigg said: “Freedom of Information has been growing steadily since it began. In 2005, the first full year, we handled 108 requests. In 2014, it was 1,003 and we have now received more than 5,000. Since April, we have replied to 95% of all requests within 20 working days”.

Most FoI requests (42% April 2014 to Jan 2015) come from commercial sources while 18% are submitted by the national press. Only 14% are presented by the county’s residents with a tiny 4% coming from our local papers. Monmouthshire’s…